Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
Ed Balls never gets enough credit for the Brownies that he cooks up. One was served today, when he spent an interview with the Beeb denouncing those Tory plans to axe 220,000 apprenticeships. As he put it: “There is a choice for our country – a choice between a Government which says we must act
With neither Labour nor the Tories saying much about Israel, Nick Clegg spotted an opportunity in venting outrage today. His party love it – but a little too much. Here is an extract from the blog of Chris Davies, a Libdem MEP: “It is time for Liberal Democrats to call a halt to the attempt
The VAT cut may have been economically and electorally irrelevant, but might all these interest rate cuts deliver for Gordon Brown? History will be made tomorrow when the Bank of England cuts rates to the lowest in its 315-year history – probably by half a point, to 1.5%. And even that will probably fall to
Only when Tony Blair popped up on the airwaves did it become clear just how different it is this time. Israel is again at war — yet, unlike 2006 there are no MPs clamouring for Parliament to be recalled. There is no Prime Minister who regards himself as a peacemaker offering his opinion to the
As Waterford Wedgwood goes bust and its obituaries written, it’s worth noting its contribution to an area for where it gets little credit: outlawing the slave trade. Much rot is spoken about the abolition campaign, mainly due to the vanity of MPs who like to portray it as the result of a parliamentary initiative. Rather,
Like James, I applauded Cameron’s tax-cutting plan – the right cut, in the right direction, for the right people. But there is one slight hitch. It is promised only if there’s an election this year. The 2009-10 budget starts in April, by which time Cameron probably wont be in power. If there’s an election next
Will anyone take Gordon Brown’s claim to create up to 100,000 jobs seriously? As a statistician will tell you, “up to” includes the number zero. And as any economist will tell you, government can’t create jobs. The best it can do is move jobs, from the private to the public sector via tax – or
I’m fairly pessimistic about the prospects for sterling – or the GBPeso as some CoffeeHousers have dubbed it. But as a counterbalance to the stuff I’ve been posting recently, here is a forecast from Royal Bank of Scotland which reckons sterling has been oversold, the turning point has arrived and that we will be able
No.10 has come up with an ingenious solution to what could have been a yearly presentational problem: to have Gordon Brown’s New Year’s Message as a disembodied voice, with no video at all. You can listen to it here. And that voice observes that an “old era of unbridled free market dogma was finally ushered
Another day, another plunge for sterling – it’s at E1.022 and the slide shows no sign of tailing off. The world is beginning to worry that the kids are running the sweet shop in the British economy – and that mum has gone to Iceland. Well, not quite, but the Reykjavik-on-Thames scenario – while still
When David Cameron agreed last June to let his chief strategist work from California for six months, it seemed a timely break from what was threatening to become a dull job. Gordon Brown looked finished, and his party too weak to depose him. British politics threatened to be a comedy of errors stumbling on until
As Matt says in his column today, only fools or knaves make predictions nowadays. So it’s with the caveat that prediction is a mug’s game that I make an A-Z of predictions for 2009 in my News of the World column today. Having said that, it’s by no means a pointless exercise to say how
I said that Gordon Brown’s VAT cut was too small to notice – yet I have just saved £15 on furniture imports from Bali. Of course, £15 is a serious, noticeable amount of money. Problem is, it only helps people who have £600 to fork out on furniture. And here this is another defect of
It’s not just the Germans. The IMF today has poured scorn on Gordon Brown’s useless VAT cut for reasons that any corner shop owner could have explained to the Prime Minister. Here is what Olivier Blanchard, the IMF chief economist, said today. “Temporarily cutting VAT, a measure that was adopted in Great Britain, does not
Is biofuel a cause worth dying for? Or, more specifically, is the West so sold on the idea that we’re willing to let the poor starve as we fill our cars with the grain it would take to feed a man for nine months? This FAO report from the United Nations counts the damage: 75
Every Christmas time, a turkey emerges to be hunted in the festive news vacuum. From Tim Yeo to Charlie Whelan, many have found themselves with the misfortune to have done something wrong when nothing else is happening – so will be pilloried from here to Hogmanay. This season it’s Bob Quick who is being stuffed,
The ghost of Christmas Future has arrived at Kirkcaldy – and persuaded Gordon Brown not to hold an election next year. So says Ben Brogan, and it rings true. I’ve previously set out the case for a January election, and Trevor Kavanagh that for a February one. But the PM hasn’t taken our advice, and
Judging the Threadneedle/Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards is far from an onerous task. There are two splendid lunches, plenty of wine, first-rate gossip and more than a little argument. The deliberations are secret, but I can perhaps share with you an unexpected debate that took place when we were deciding who to name as
The Prime Minister’s routine half-truths, exaggerations and Brownies may have bored the British public into submission, but every now and again we get foreign governments or organisations setting him straight. After the Germans (and everyone else – list here) now it’s the turn of Abdalla Salem El-Badri, head of Opec, to gently point out that
It’s twelve months of Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrat leadership today and he celebrates by giving an interview to The Independent, saying he wants to be taken seriously. “It would help if he didn’t claim to have slept with up to 30 women,” said Nick Ferrari on LBC this morning. Andrew Pierce then came on and
